Australia Australia - Donald Mackay, 43, Griffith, NSW, 15 July 1977

About 6.30 p.m. on Friday 15 July 1977 Mackay left the Hotel Griffith and vanished. His bloodstained vehicle was located seven hours later in the hotel car park. Three spent .22 cartridges lay nearby. Public indignation at the failure of the police to find Mackay's body led the premier Neville Wran to appoint Justice Philip Woodward royal commissioner to inquire into drug trafficking. He reported in 1979 that Mackay was murdered by a 'hit man' on behalf of the Griffith cell of N'Dranghita (The Honoured Society). In 1984 the local coroner found that Mackay died of 'wilfully inflicted gunshot wounds'. His wife, two sons and two daughters survived him.

In 1986 James Frederick Bazley, who protested his innocence, was sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiracy to murder Mackay. The report in 1987 of a special commission of inquiry into the police investigation of the death of Donald Bruce Mackay named police officers, politicians and 'Society' members. Few, if any, doubt that Mackay was murdered in 1977, but many questions concerning his disappearance remain unanswered.[i/]

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Strangeworld said:

This is unbelievable! I remember watching the true crime shows featuring this case. Very sad. Really hoping they find his body for his family. This will traumatise them all over again.

What makes me mad is that someone has known where he has been this whole time, and has withheld this knowledge. And they'll get rewarded financially too.

I'll be watching this one with interest.

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Mackay had blown the whistle on an Italian mafia drug ring that was behind a multimillion-dollar marijuana trade.
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A tipoff has led police to a rural property tonight near Hay in NSW.
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(Clive Small is the former head of crime squads with the NSW Police and was an investigator with the Woodward Royal Commission.)

CLIVE SMALL: There have been plenty of searches carried out over the years for the body of Donald Mackay, none of which have been successful. And I think the reason for that is that very few people, if any of them, are still alive, would know about the whereabouts of the body.

LEIGH SALES: So why has a tip off come now?

CLIVE SMALL: Well that's one thing I guess we'll have to wait and see. It's very interesting that it has come at this particular time, but at the same time I think we just need to exercise a fair deal of care before we get too excited about it.
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LEIGH SALES: How many suspects were there in the case?

CLIVE SMALL: Well I guess it depends on what you mean by suspects. The fact of the matter is that Justice Woodward identified six people who he said were senior Calabrian Mafia figures and held senior positions in the drug trade and that they all had prearranged alibis on the night of the murder or the day of the murder and he found that very significant.

LEIGH SALES: Of those six, how many are still alive?

CLIVE SMALL: I'm not sure, but probably four.

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Strangeworld said:

I wonder that too Figtree. I'd imagine their identity will need protecting? I also wonder if it's a criminal making a deal - to shorten a sentence, get parole, or something similar.

Awful thinking about his wife that night - she must have known the risks he was taking, and the enemies he would make. But I'm sure she lived with a broken heart for the rest of her life.

For anyone interested, he was featured in Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities. Andrew McFarlane has an uncanny resemblance to Donald, and played the role so well.

On a side note, any fellow WSers from outside Australia may want to look up the underbelly series - a great insight into the history of Australian crime across the decades. Be warned though, there's a bit of nudity and violence

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"The doco shows why the version shown in the TV series Underbelly was wrong and the explains relationship with the Nugan hand Bank. Features interviews with crime writer, Tony Reeves (author of Mr Sin and Mr Big) and with Ian Salmon, the man who discovered the murder scene"

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New South Wales police reinvestigating the 36-year-old murder of Griffith anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay have been told two hit men dumped the body in a well at a property near Hay on their way back to Melbourne.

Police have been able to establish historical links between key figures of the Griffith mafia – alleged to have organised the hit – and the property now at the centre of the latest investigation.

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THE former deputy commissioner whose taskforce cracked the Donald Mackay case expects several murder charges to be laid if Mr Mackay's body is found.

''I have every hope that this new search in Hay will find Mr Mackay's remains, although I am not confident of this outcome,'' Carl Mengler told the Herald Sun.

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Convicted murderer James Bazley told the Herald Sun he had nothing to fear from the new search for Mr Mackay.

"I know I am innocent and there might be evidence if the body turns up that could prove that," Bazley said.

But Bazley, 87, is living in a dream world if he thinks finding the body will help him in any way.

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dizzigirl1 said:

How does it take two years to act on a tip off or am i misreading the following article?

http://www.areanews.com.au/story/1572686/could-it-be-mackay/?cs=670

I remember this growing up. How sad, i didn't realise his wife had passed in 2001.

You are also right about Andrew McFarlane. When i was googling i was amazed at the likeness of some the other underbelly characters to the actors that played them.

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It is widely believed Melbourne hitman James Bazley was the trigger-man but despite ailing health, he has steadfastly refused to reveal to authorities where he dumped Mr Mackay’s body.

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Sources told The Daily Telegraph officers had located the landmark after several days spent digging at Willow Farm, on Maude road just west of the small rural town of Hay.
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Speaking on Friday last week search commander police Detective Superintendent Michael Rowan said the tip-off had been investigated by officers and had been verified to the point where it "couldn't be ignored".
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Ex-editor of the Griffith based Area News Terry Jones said he was contacted during part of that investigation last year about a journalist working for the paper at the time, which The Daily Telegraph has chosen not to name.

"They rang me last November and asked me and another editor about a journalist we had working for the paper," Mr Jones said. "He was in court the day of the trial of the Coleambally (marijuana drug bust) accused."

"He died not so long ago. But he must have left something about the case behind in written form."

Mr Jones said the latest search was in an area which made no sense and was "a long way off the beaten track" but pointed out it was the largest and most "site specific" in the last 30 years.

"What (suppressed) has written and left behind who knows," he said.

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In 1977, Mr Mackay was murdered by hitmen acting on instructions from the Calabrian mafia, also known as the ‘Ndrangheta. His fierce stand against the expansive cannabis-cultivation trade led to his death.

Italian roots run thick in Griffith, with 60 per cent of locals tracing their heritage back to Italy.

The Calabrian mafia maintains its influence in the Griffith region through familial links, dating back to the 1930s...

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